New World
by neon rose
Summary: The Titans find themselves in the future relying on the help of the new Titans to help them back to their own time but the Titans are finding that the future isn't what they'd hoped and learn more about themselves than they wanted to know. Mixed pairings
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Hey boys and girls, i figured i should let you all in on the story that's been stopping me from updating my others, I was trying to finish it before I put it up but it just couldn't wait, so here you go. Enjoy!

Robin didn't even manage to catch the name of the machine that had been stolen from the new Central Science building, before he caught sight of the criminal backing out of an alleyway which he knew was a dead end and trying to stealthily sneak off elsewhere, Robin gave chase with the other Titans following behind him at high speed. He skidded around an alley corner and followed the scared looking man. Robin knew that he was gaining on the man who rapidly seemed to be loosing breath, the rest of his team were closely following him in the tightly packed alleyway. Raven extended her hand and lashed out a tangle of dark energy tripping the man up.

Robin tried to skid to a halt as the device dropped to the floor and gave out a bright flash of light, Robin managed to skid to a halt with just the steel toe tips of his boots in the strange white light, he almost breathed a sigh of relief before Cyborg skidded into the back of him, sending all five Titans tumbling into the white light like dominoes.

"Gee, nice one Cy." Beast Boy groaned from under the others, he flopped his head to the floor and jerked up when he found it cold and wet.

"It's snowing!" Starfire declared with glee as she looked up at the night's sky which was glittered with falling snowflakes.

"But… it was midday just a moment ago!" Cyborg exclaimed as he got up.

"Not to mention the middle of June." Raven added flatly.

"Beast Boy, where are we? Can you tell?" Robin asked sitting up and rubbing his head. Beast Boy turned into a pigeon and walked this way and that before taking off, flying in a small circle and dropping to the ground again, he quickly turned into a bloodhound and sniffed the air before turning back to a recognisable Beast Boy.

"It's Jump still, I'm sure of it. That's what the magnetic field says and it even smells almost exactly like Jump too." Beast Boy commented as he knelt on one knee.

"I know Jump like the back of my hand, this isn't Jump and it certainly isn't where we just were." Robin said with a frown.

"Well dude, if you were so sure why did you even ask me?" Beast Boy muttered rolling his eyes.

"Because-" Robin snapped before suddenly stopping, he could hear footsteps approaching and shouting voices, he raised a finger to his lips. Robin looked left and right before spotting the garage door to his right and hauling it open, he beckoned the others in and pulled the door down.

"We don't want to be seen if we don't know where we could be." Robin explained.

"I DO know where we are." Beast Boy grumbled.

"But I want to be the one doing the seeing." Robin added ignoring Beast Boy and lifting the garage door up a few inches. Robin pressed himself to the floor and looked out through the gap, the other Titans did the same.

A pair of booted feet ran past before skidding to a halt just at the edge of vision. Shortly behind them stopped three pairs of feet.

"As I always said, you can run but you can't hide. Not in this town at any rate. Also you might want to reconsider running, not such a great idea either." One voice said with a slightly smug tone.

"G-get that… that _thing_ away from me!" The first booted figure said shakily as the owner backed back into vision.

Beast Boy heard the noise first, it made every hair on the back of his neck stand on end, every prey animal in his mind told him to run, and run fast even his primal human instincts told him to run. It was the low growl of predator, the other Titans felt it too. Large grey black paws moved slowly and deliberately into sight, forcing the man to back up.

"Aww, that's not nice. We are Titans after all, the name is meant to garner a little respect at least. Aya's a person not a thing, a titan too so maybe you should show her a little more respect. I promise she'll play nice if you surrender." A second voice said.

"Titans?" Robin breathed, he didn't recognise the voices or what he could see of the figures and he knew every Titan there was, they must be faking, and tarnishing the Titan name no less.

"I-I mean it! Get it away from me!" The voice shouted, hitting a high pitch. A snarl and a snapping of jaws came in response.

"Whoa, hands out of your pockets- ack!" One of the voices shouted before recoiling, the Titans all gasped and skidded back from the gap in the garage door holding their noses and mouths. Beast Boy skidded back the furthest and tried to suppress a retch.

"Aniseed- you bastard!" The first voice coughed running towards the first booted figure that had started to flee. Robin watched in watery eyed in interest as the large paws shook and turned into feet, shortly followed by snow white knees hitting the floor, a whole figure following after.

"Aya!" The boy shouted grabbing her.

"It's okay, go catch him, I'll still be here when…" The girl who laid in place of the wolf said croakily. The boy paused before rushing off with the other two figures to chase after the first. The girl pushed herself up off the floor and staggered over to the corner of the alleyway and promptly vomited in a trash can, Robin quietly eased the sliding door of the garage up and crawled out.

The girl was short, about his height, long black hair in start contrast to her unnaturally white skin and her black leotard which seemed to expose far too much skin for the freezing weather. At the base of her spine a black and white wolf tail lashed from side to side indicating his displeasure, on the top of her head pointed canine like ears twitched.

"Ugh. Aniseed. There goes my sinuses for the night." The girl muttered to herself sounding as if she had a cold and spat in the bin. Around her neck a large steel band like collar hung, about the right size for a large wolf Robin noted. Hanging from it a yellow and black communicator with a white T hung like a pet tag. Robin narrowed his eyes, if anyone would know where they were and what was going on, someone pretending to be a Titan was a good place to start, he clenched both his fists into one large fist as he crept up behind her, silently raised it in the air and brought his hands crashing down onto the back of the girl's head. She fell hard, he didn't care much.

"Drag her in, before the others get back. I want answers." Robin ordered as he looked shiftily up and down the alleyway.

The girl on the floor groaned and shifted, she opened her eyes slowly and jerked upright when she realised that her hands were tied together, she looked wildly around the room and skidded herself backwards to the nearest wall and prepared to use it to lever herself onto her feet.

"Stay where you are." Robin ordered darkly from the shadows of the room, the girl peered into the darkness but couldn't make out any detail on the speaker. Stupid aniseed bomb.

"You're making a big mistake by doing this." She warned shifting her wrists in their restraints but there was no room to wriggle free of them, her captor knew what he was doing.

"Yes, I'm sure. Now who are you? And where did you get this?" Robin questioned sticking closely to the shadows as he threw the Titans communicator across the room, it skidded across the floor to the girl.

"Are you kidding me?" The girl asked looking from the communicator to the shadows, Robin said nothing.

"It's mine! Don't you know who I am? I'm a Titan!" the girl snapped angrily, she sniffed and wiped her watering eyes on her shoulder, damn aniseed.

"You're lucky I can't see or smell a damn thing." She muttered trying to spit the taste of aniseed out of her mouth.

"You're lying! If you were a Titan I'd know you! What city is this?" Robin demanded.

"It's Jump, where else would we be?" The girl snapped angrily, she thought she heard a mutter of 'told you' from one to the other.

"You're lying!" Robin shouted frustratedly, the girl cocked her head to the side and black wolf ears twitched, a smile spread across her face.

"Fine, don't believe me. But if you don't know who I am or where you are I'm betting you didn't know to hide me better from my team mate and he's looking for me, you're running out of time and fast." She grinned before tilting her head back and making a sound that should never have come from a human throat, a perfect wolf howl.

The garage door exploded in an instant and a blur sped through the room and threw Robin against the wall. Robin stared wide eyed into the face of his oldest friend or at least it was almost his face, there were a few different subtle touches, higher cheekbones, a sharper jaw, redder hair with less orange tones in it of course the less subtle difference was the fiercely glowing pink eyes, it was however unmistakably the face of Kid Flash. The face of Kid flash registered surprise, shock and a hint or horror, he dropped Robin to the floor as his eyes ceased to glow and returned to blue increasing the resemblance to the Kid Flash Robin knew. Robin looked the boy up and down, the outfit he wore only increased the resemblance the colour patterns were different but the colours themselves were still the same although with more red than yellow and the unmistakable lightning bolt across the chest.

"Jesus…" The boy breathed stepping back and staring at Robin.

"Kid Flash?" Robin ventured.

"No, well, kinda." The boy murmured looking from Robin to the others.

"Bolt?" The girl called as she pushed herself up to a standing position against the wall.

"Jeez, sorry." The boy quickly apologised and zipped behind her, freeing her from her restraints.

"Have you seen them?" The Kid Flash look-alike asked jerking his thumb in Robin's direction.

"No, I'm half blind from that aniseed remember? I can't smell a damn thing either." The girl growled at him and rubbed her wrists.

"Oh right, sorry. Heh, this is probably the only time I've had better senses than you isn't it? Hmmm how can I exploit this situation to my advantage?" He grinned cheekily.

"He _sounds _like Kid Flash." Cyborg commented stepping closer to the boy to look at him and stepping out of the shadows at the same time. The girl's eyes widened in shock and she jumped back against the wall.

"Jesus!" She yelped.

"That's what I said." The redhead said smirking at her.

"What's going on here, are you Kid Flash or not?" Cyborg asked confused.

"Not quite, my name's Bolt, although I'm also known as- mmf!" He yelped muffled through the pale hand clamped over his mouth.

"Please try not to do anything stupid Bolt, like, say erasing yourself from history." She said slowly and quietly in his ear as she eyed the Titans who were mostly out of the shadows now suspiciously.

"What do you mean erase yourself from history?" Beast Boy asked stepping forward into the light as his sensitive ears picked up the whispered words.

"Smooth, Aya, smooth." The boy smirked again.

"You're no better." She replied shoving him.

"Will someone please tell me what's going on here?" Cyborg asked frustratedly, the wolf girl known as Aya and the boy who was apparently Bolt looked at him carefully.

"We're in the future. That's what she means by him erasing himself from history, if we know too much about his family our knowing might effect his parents getting together at the right time or not at all and make it so he was never born, effectively erasing him from history, is that right?" Robin asked, Aya nodded at Robin's calculated guess.

"But I have been forward in time before, nothing bad happened." Starfire pointed out in an attempt to be reassuring.

"But it did, you changed the future, this isn't the same future that you went to then is it?" Aya pointed out reasonably.

"How would you know she went to the future? Star you were absent from the future you went to weren't you? Your adult self wasn't there was she?" Raven asked suspiciously.

"No, I had disappeared from the moment I left." Starfire agreed.

"But if you know about Starfire going through time one of us must have told you so our future selves are here? We could run into them?" Raven asked.

"Awesome! I wanna see my future self, I want to make sure I'm not bald." Beast Boy said grasping his hair nervously.

"No! You can't!" Aya yelped.

"And why not?" Cyborg asked raising an eyebrow.

"Because… it might cause a paradox!" Aya pointed out.

"Yeah, we kinda like the fabric of space and time how it is. And you know, it'd suck to have to redecorate." Bolt grinned cheekily.

"Either way, we need to get them back to the tower as fast as possible. You know the protocals, they cannot be seen by anyone, much less their future selves." Aya said turning to Bolt with a serious look.

"Okay, so we walk them back to the tower. Big deal, I don't see why you're so fussed." Bolt said with a careless shrug.

"Oh yeah, just let any old nutjob take a stab at the greatest heroes this city has ever known, let any villain with a grudge find out that there's a way to erase them and us from history. Great plan, I didn't realise it was possible to live so long without a brain, now come on. We can take the rooftops." Aya growled jabbing Bolt in the chest before turning on her heel and walking out of the garage and out into the snowing alleyway.

"She's pleasant." Beast Boy said with a wrinkle of his nose.

"She's fine, she just… thrives on protocals on rules and regulations, something that could destroy her whole system scares her. Plus, seeing you guys is freaky enough for me, let alone her." Bolt said with a sigh and a shrug.

"That doesn't sound like a good quality in a leader." Robin said folding his arms and frowning.

"Geeze, why does everyone always think Aya's the leader? I'm the leader." Bolt grumbled running a frustrated hand through his hair.

"Then she doesn't sound like a good team member." Robin replied.

"You don't know her, she's good at what she does." Bolt shot back with a glare.

"And that is?" Robin prompted.

"Catching criminals, solving crimes and frustrating the hell out of me." Bolt muttered leading the way outside.

"We can take my patrol route back to the tower, it'll avoid all the streets and pedestrians, hopefully no one should see you." Aya said turning to look at the others as they made their way outside, she leapt up and bounced up to the roof top.

"Why do you have a patrol route that doesn't even touch the streets?" Cyborg asked Aya as Starfire lifted him up onto the roof.

"Necessity." Aya said flatly, "I'll see you back at the tower, I'm going to go ahead to make sure there's no chance of these lot running into themselves." Aya added looking around Cyborg to Bolt.

"Got ya." Bolt nodded as Aya transformed and bounded off on the rooftops in the direction of the Titan's tower.

"Why is it necessary for her to not patrol on the streets?" Cyborg asked turning to Bolt.

"Unfortunately for us in our time the second generations of Titans aren't as popular as you five were. The city more or less hates us, Aya especially. Any animal attack within a hundred miles of here is blamed on her, people telling lies about her going insane on a full moon and slaughtering children. All lies I might add. They call me a 'trust fund titan' only in because of who my parents are, the rest of my team comprises of a psychic possessed by a demon from hell and an alien from a race that's declared war on us and frequently kills any humans in the galaxy they can find. We're not exactly popular, so Aya guards the city from up here, keeps an eye on things without the mob and pitchforks after her." Bolt said with a sad sigh.

"Man, that sucks. Sorry I asked." Cyborg apologised.

"Yeah, well. We do our best to try and turn people's assumptions but we've got some pretty big boots to fill thanks to you guys." Bolt shrugged as he jumped to the opposite rooftop.

"So you are Kid Flash's Kid, or rather… Flash now I suppose?" Robin asked carefully.

"Yup. I know I'm meant to lie and not tell you anything about who any of us are but with me it's a little pointless seeing as I'm pretty much a carbon copy looks wise." Bolt laughed.

"You don't talk like him though, you laugh like him… but you talk differently." Robin noted.

"Well you wouldn't think it the way my mom yells at us, 'stop talking at a million miles an hour the pair of you, now shut up or I'll throw you both out!'" Bolt mimicked with a laugh.

"I can imagine life with two of you could be more than a little draining." Raven said flatly.

"Gee. Thanks." Bolt said rolling his eyes. Slowly the lights of the Titan's tower came into view across the horizon amidst the blackness of the waters of the lake.

"Here we go, home sweet home." The red head smiled as he skidded down the fire escape of the last building between them and the Titans Tower.

"Hey, Aya's there." Cyborg said as they drew closer to the Tower. Aya stood by the doors of the tower arguing with her Titan's communicator and striding angrily from side to side.

"What? No! I didn't break it or disable the tracker on purpose, why would I? …I… what? No. It just broke. …sometimes things just break okay? No I was not kidnapped- well then Bolt misinformed you. It was all just a big misunderstanding." Aya said into the communicator as she shot Bolt a dark look.

"I thought he should know!" Bolt hissed defencively.

"No, look, I'm fine but I've got work to do right now, I'll promise I'll show up later to prove to you that I'm not dead in some alleyway okay? Bye." Aya said rolling her eyes and closing the communicator.

"Ah. I'm in trouble aren't I?" Bolt asked with a wince.

"Oh yeah, you know you shouldn't worry him like that." Aya sighed running a hand through her black hair.

"It was a whole hour with you off the map and if you had gone missing and I hadn't found you then you know he'd have skinned me alive." Bolt pointed out.

"Yes I know. Not that he's going to have bought that lie anyway, but it's not like I can tell him the truth is it? Ugh. I hate time travel, let's go inside and see if we can get them back." Aya said as she turned and pressed the panel by the door which registered her handprint and slid open.

"Welcome back Aya." Cyborg's voice greeted her as the door opened fully.

"Whoa, was that me?" Cyborg blinked shocked.

"Eh, kinda. It's your automated system, it's more creepy than anything." Bolt grinned weakly as he followed Aya inside, the Titan's followed feeling strange to have to be invited into their own home by other people. Robin looked around, not much in the place had changed, the large TV screen still flickered warmly on mute along with several large computer banks and stations across the place, the kitchen looked pretty much unchanged apart from the new Titans sitting around in it. A girl with unnaturally bright looking red hair gawped at them.

"Whoa, is-" She gasped before being interrupted by Aya as she walked past.

"Time travel, trying to prevent paradoxes, don't say anything dumb." Aya finished as she arrived at the large screened monitor and computer bank. The girl paused before poking her tongue out at Aya behind her back.

"I'd like you all to meet my sister, this is Lucy, although we don't exactly call her that." Bolt grinned at them.

"Lucky." Aya snorted as she tapped onto the computer keys.

"Heh, totally. You know when you name pets lucky they always end up being like, run over and end up loosing half their limbs and one ear, my sister is like, the _least_ lucky person ever. I mean she's blown up her half of the tower six times this year already, and it's February! She's been possessed by a demon which we've not been able to do anything about really. Oh man, she's ALWAYS getting into-ACK!" Bolt yelped jumping to the side as a burst of flame ripped through the air from his sister's fingers, narrowly missing him.

"Unfortunately for my idiot brother here, since I got possessed, I've been able to do that." Lucky muttered folding her arms knowing that the name had now irrevocably stuck with these new people.

"So what brings them here fuzzball? You got a lead yet?" Lucky asked with a grin as she looked over to Aya.

"I'm going to ignore that Lucky, and yes as a matter of fact." Aya said triumphantly as she pulled the data up on the screen, she turned to look at Robin.

"This was the guy you were chasing right?" Aya asked as she pointed up to the image of the man on the screen, Robin nodded.

"That's him, you think that he activated the machine? It looked more like he dropped it when we were following him." Robin said stepping closer to the screen.

"Well, it's a good start. His future self is dead, but that doesn't mean that he didn't come through with you." Aya said pointing out the mark of deceased mark on the man's profile.

"But I never saw him in that alleyway, and we didn't see him running off anywhere either." Robin pointed out.

"True, but he's the most sensible place to start. I'll get going." Aya nodded and turned to leave only to be stopped by a hand firmly holding onto the big steel collar around her neck.

"Oh no you don't. You just got hit by an aniseed bomb and knocked out at the very least you're gonna stay here for five minutes and get your sense of smell back properly." Bolt said flatly.

"But… I've got lots to do. I've got to go look at the alleyway before the trail goes cold, check out the make of the machine and where it is now and I've got that errand to run for the embassy and- and…" Aya stumbled as Bolt glared at her.

"No. I'm going to go boil some water to clear your sinuses and you are going to sit there and just do nothing for five minutes." He retorted walking into the kitchen.

"But-" She tried helplessly.

"No! You. That chair. Now." Bolt snapped back, Aya obediently sat down on one of the bar stools surrounding the kitchen island with her ears drooping sadly.

"You need to learn to relax Aya." Lucky said rolling her pink eyes.

"I can relax, I'm just to busy to right now." Aya protested.

"That's exactly what I mean." She snorted in response.

"So… if this is Jump in the future, how many years forward are we? None of my internal clocks are working." Cyborg said after a moment or two of silence in which the Titans had felt a little ignored.

"It's 2034 and that's probably because none of your components are compatible with modern technology anymore." Lucky replied.

"Wow, we went forward twenty six years? That's a lot." Cyborg whistled lowly.

"Yup. You're all old now." Lucky grinned cheekily at them.

"Hey, it's not that old." Cyborg said rolling his one human eye.

"Dude! It so is! We're like… sixty four!" Beast Boy exclaimed horrified.

"You idiot, you're sixteen now, how does sixteen and twenty six make sixty four? You'd be forty two, and still a moron no doubt." Raven corrected Beast Boy irritably.

"Aww, it's not his fault. Math is hard." Bolt smiled sympathetically as he put down the bowl of steaming water in front of Aya, he shot her a look and handed her a towel, Aya rolled her eyes and leant over the steam with the towel around her head.

"Math isn't THAT hard." Raven shot back.

"So tell me friend Bolt, can you tell us anything about ourselves as we are now or must it be a secret?" Starfire asked with eager interest.

"Well, the more we tell you the more dangerous the whole thing gets for us, maybe if we can find someone who can erase your memories before you go back we might be able to tell you stuff but as for now it'd probably be best if you just stay here and try and remain as ignorant about everything in our time as possible." Bolt explained.

"Oh, I see." Starfire said deflating slightly.

"Sorry Starfire." Bolt said holding his hands up in defeat. Aya leant back and rubbed her flushed face from the moisture sticking to it and sniffed experimentally.

"I think I'm good to go." Aya said standing up from the barstool.

"I thought we said five minutes Aya." Bolt said narrowing his eyes at her.

"Hm. I was fairly sure YOU said five minutes. Anyway, I can smell now, so I can track these five back to the alley and go hunt for clues and the million other things I have to get done tonight." Aya said with a shake of her head.

"It's midnight already Aya, you can't just be out all night." Bolt protested with a worried look on his face.

"I'll be fine. Now, I'll see if I can't track your guy down, you all smell like a different kind of Jump city, it shouldn't be too hard to track down that smell on someone else if I start where you lot came through, and failing that I'll see if I can't beat some information out of a few of our old friends." Aya said as she turned to the Titans, she flashed them a smile.

"Well, what about us?" Bolt asked as Aya walked off towards the door.

"Oh, I'm sure you'll think of something." Aya smiled before turning back into a wolf and padding out of the open door.

"And who's the leader here again? Just remind me." Lucky smirked at Bolt.

"Oh, shut up." Bolt muttered.

"Heh, he's never able to tell her what to do, she's somewhat of a lone wolf, no pun intended." A blue boy with slightly translucent skin smiled wryly.

"This is the last member of our team, Ice." Bolt introduced him distractedly as he looked out across the door with a worried look on her face.

"Does she always run out on her own?" Cyborg asked looking surprised at Aya's sudden disappearance.

"Yeah, she's… something else certainly." Bolt nodded with a sigh.


	2. Chapter 2

The wolf continued through the streets at a fast pace with her nose down to the ground sniffing out the strange smell, she clo

The wolf continued through the streets at a fast pace with her nose down to the ground sniffing out the strange smell, she closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, she could smell Robin, Beast Boy, Raven, Starfire and the strange metallic smell of Cyborg. She bounded up onto the nearby roof and sniffed the air, there was none of that strange scent that they had dragged through the vortex with them. A growl escaped the canine's lips as she leapt from the rooftop to the next one and headed to downtown following the scent of liquor and violence.

Aya stretched up as she spine lengthened and fingers and human skin re-emerged as the change took place, she turned and pushed open the door to the bar, the volume level satisfyingly dropped to a worried hum. Aya turned and cocked her him and grinned wolfishly at the occupants of the bar.

"Now, who's gonna tell me what I wanna know?" the girl grinned at them crunching her knuckles with some satisfaction.

Robin rocked on the back two legs of his chair impatiently.

"I don't like this sitting around not doing anything, especially when we're meant to be getting back to our time and dealing with criminals." Robin growled.

"You just don't know how to relax man." Beast Boy grinned up at Robin lopsidedly.

"I know how to catch criminals, it's what I do. It's what we're meant to be doing." Robin retorted.

"You're as bad as Aya, she's never stopping whenever there's any crimes to be solves or baddies to catch which is you know, like, all the time." Lucky laughed slapping Robin on the back.

"Relax. Think of this as a well needed vacation, time has literally stopped for you, when we find out what sent you here and get it back and get you back then you can go back to the very second you left. You won't miss catching anyone, promise." Lucky added with a smile.

"You sound just like Kid Flash, always telling me to relax and calm down and let the police do their job." Robin smiled wryly.

"I guess it's inherited then." Bolt said thoughtfully.

"But it wouldn't be so bad if I were at least able to help out or go on patrol or something." Robin groaned leaning back in his chair further.

"What and risk you altering the time stream by getting an injury you don't remember or worse getting killed or god knows what. And what would people say seeing you running around from another time?" Bolt pointed out, he knew however much he teased Aya that her protocols had reason behind them.

"Robin's right, this is boring. You can't tell us anything about the future, we can't go do or touch anything which will tell us anything about the future, which includes, oh, you know, everything." Cyborg said mimicking Lucky.

"Ugh. No, with any luck you'll be back home within 24 hours and then you can go back to doing whatever it was you did in the olden days." Bolt said rolling his eyes.

Robin was impressed, it only took three hours to make Bolt give in, Kid Flash wouldn't have lasted one.

"GOD! Fine! I'll take you out somewhere, on patrol or something. Just… you're gonna need some kind of disguise. Let me go have a look." Bolt groaned before zipping off.

"Yay!" Beast Boy cheered finally, to Raven's delight, dropping his newly invented game of 'animal charades'.

"But Beast Boy, what was it you were miming?" Starfire asked urgently.

"It was cat on a hot tin roof. Just like the last five times." Raven grumbled darkly.

"Hey, this time I mimed as an ermine." Beast Boy pouted, Raven narrowed her eyes.

"I think you misunderstand the main principles of this game Beast Boy." Raven deadpanned with an eye roll.

"Hey, I think these oughta work, I think Cyborg finished work on them a few years back, I'll download some profiles of some of our old Titan tryouts onto there. That should make you blend in." Bolt said quickly as he returned with a handful of rings in his hands.

"Hey, aren't those the rings that you had when you went undercover in the HIVE academy?" Raven asked craning her neck.

"Looks like it." Cyborg nodded.

"Here." Bolt said returning back and handing out pairs of rings.

"Hey, I thought Aya said to keep them here." Lucky said looking surprised.

"Yeah, well, Aya's not the leader here. Plus if we're trying to track down someone who might know of or be responsible for this then they're gonna be the ones who'll be able to recognise them, not us." Bolt bristled slightly as he turned to his sister.

"Ooh, looks who's being all manly and leader-like." Lucky grinned teasing him Bolt frowned and ignored her.

"Well, where should we go then?" Ice asked folding his arms.

"Start from the Tamaranian quarter and work our way uptown, maybe have a look over the building where the machine was stolen in the first place, if it's still there." Bolt said thoughtfully.

"Sounds like a plan." Robin nodded as he activated his rings and turned into an oddly dressed boy of his own age, his hair seemed to be mostly the same cover but his uniform was a mixture of unusual blue and black stripes that reminded him more of a catsuit than anything. He turned to see Beast Boy as a rather bemused looking tanned blonde in what appeared to be a modified wetsuit, he guessed the original owner of that form had water powers of some kind. Raven was… barely recognisable her hair was also blonde and her outfit looked more like something the average mall crawling teenage girl would wear rather than an impressive sorceress. Robin suppressed a laugh.

"Come on." Bolt said heading to the door, pleased to be doing something the Titans followed. Starfire sniffed the air happily as they entered the poorest quarter of the residential district, she could smell Tamaranian food and lots of it. In the street they were walking up happy Tamaranian children played in the snow gleefully zipping around above the surface of it.

"This is wonderful!" Starfire smiled happily as she looked along the streets and waved at the children.

"Remember you don't look Tamaranian Star." Robin said below his breath to Starfire, with a look of surprise Starfire looked at her dark coca coloured skin.

"It's strange looking like someone else." Starfire nodded not yet used to her new appearance.

"This is the Tamaranian quarter of town, it's got a pretty low local crime rate, the Tamaranians seem pretty happy to just get by peacefully, if only the rest of the city felt the same way towards them." Ice said with a tinge of sadness as he pointed to some surprisingly hateful graffiti.

"Why would someone say such a thing?" Starfire asked wide eyed as her fingered brushed the spray paint.

"Xenophobia, ever since Earth and Tamaran have got closer in extra-terrestrial relations there's been a larger amount of immigration both ways and people suck whenever it comes to a new group of people they've never seen before. Thankfully not everyone's like that, but we make sure nothing real bad happens here, another reason we're not so popular here." Bolt sighed. Up at the top of the street his eyes fell on two shady looking boys with gas tanks by their feet.

"Don't even think it!" Bolt shouted running towards them, the boys looked up and glared at Bolt.

"What's wrong with you man, you're a native, you're happy with these freaks invading us? It's a goddamn invasion man!" One of the boys spat at Bolt. The other boy made a reach for his gas tank with a rag and a lighter in the other hand.

"You want some third degree burns of your own you racist? Because I assure you the only people getting anything burnt here today is gonna be you." Lucky glowered as her fists caught fire.

"Screw you girl!" One snapped back waving a knife in her face.

"Oh that's how you're going to play it?" Lucky breathed as her eyes went dark and her skin smouldered, Raven blinked in surprise as a ghost of red skin and a pointed tail appeared on Lucky's body.

"Or would you like to see where boys like you go? Since you're so fond of fire." Lucky said in a voice that echoed unnaturally as if two people were speaking at once but slightly out of sync. Lucky reached out and brushed the boy's head with a finger, the boy bent double and screamed clutching his head. And in a second, as if nothing had ever happened, the spell broke. The boy paled and ran away looking terrified, the other shouted after him before shooting a wary look at Lucky and running after his friend.

"I thought I told you to stop doing that." Bolt grumbled clenching his fists and looking at his sister.

"Oh come on, it was only a flash vision of hell. Plus, it worked didn't it?" Lucky shrugged and walked on. Bolt sighed and followed her down the road with the other Titans following behind feeling a little disturbed at such outright hatred.

"Well this is the building where the machine was originally stolen from right?" Bolt said looking up at the dominating Central Science building, the Titans nodded.

"They're closed though, I doubt we're going to find anyone here who can answer our questions." Raven noted dryly.

"Well, it is three am on a Sunday morning." Cyborg shrugged.

"Hey!" Aya shouted leaning out of an upstairs window in the Central Science building and waving at them, Bolt frowned at this and ran towards the building.

"Aya! What are you doing in there?" Bolt hissed up at her angrily.

"No use whispering now, you lot have been shouting down there loud enough to wake the dead." Aya grinned said as she leant her elbows on the windowsill and grinned down at them.

"I thought we talked about you breaking and entering." Bolt growled at her.

"We did." Aya smiled at him. "Anyway, I didn't break in. They left a ground floor window wide open." Aya explained.

"Oh really?" Bolt said flatly, the disbelief evident in his voice.

"Well, when I say ground floor, I mean third floor." Aya admitted with a sheepish grin.

"And by wide open you mean…?" Bolt said crossing his arms.

"Shut. But not locked. Well. Poorly locked at least. Well, for me anyway." She replied looking embarrassed.

"Yes, how clearly careless of them." Bolt muttered rolling his eyes.

"Did you find anything in there?" Lucky called up to her.

"Yep. Lots." Aya nodded.

"Oh fine, we'll come up and have a look." Bolt huffed irritably.

"Cool the front door's open." Aya replied.

"I don't even want to ask." Bolt said holding his hands up and walking around to the front of the building.

"Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies." Aya called out after them before ducking back into the window and shutting it behind her carefully.

"Well?" Bolt asked walking into the darkened room where Aya sat busily sifting through hard copies of old files in a previously locked drawer.

"Well it seems the time machine that got stolen was a bit of a dud, according to this report here it could only punch a hole through time one way you had to go back to the same place at a later point in time and shoot again to punch the hole back open and create a proper hole through time, and there's not a whole lot of point in being able to time travel if you have to wait until that moment in time to be able to get there." Aya said holding up the sheet of paper for the Titans to see.

"So someone had to have been there to re-open the hole for the Titans to accidentally stumble through?" Bolt asked looking up from the sheet.

"Yeah, but the odd thing was there were no footprints and zero scent trail, it's as if a ghost or something opened that portal." Aya sighed leaning back on the swivelly office chair with her tail lashing behind her pensively.

"Or you know, someone who can fly." Ice pointed out sarcastically.

"So, we're either looking at someone on the meta-human database or a Tamaranian." Aya reasoned.

"Either way that's a start, and it'll make it easier to try and find who we're looking for. Come on, let's go, I don't wanna be found in here." Bolt said shifting from foot to foot.

"Wait, don't you wanna go check the old inventions vault? There could be clues!" Aya said jumping up from her chair and grabbing Bolt around the wrist.

"You know anything we find whilst breaking and entering is inadmissible in court." Bolt pointed out.

"So? We can just go and deliver our own brand of justice, anyway if we take this to court we risk making their future selves meet them and you know that could cause a paradox, that's why we're here in the first place." Aya insisted.

"Oh fine, go on then. You'll be the death of me with your borderline criminal behaviour." Bolt groaned rubbing his eyes.

"Aww, I know you love it." She laughed before running off out of the room, Bolt reddened and followed her.

"Will you two either get it together or get over it?" Lucky snorted shoving past her brother.

"You two disagree on your methods of finding evidence then?" Cyborg asked walking alongside Bolt.

"We're unpopular enough here as it is without breaking the law, unless we keep our noses completely clean the police department won't work with us at all and then we'll be pretty much useless in this town. But Aya just won't give up when she's on a case, short of severely hurting someone she'll do anything to solve a case." Bolt sighed wearily following the over excited Aya as she bounded down the stairs to the Central Science invention vaults.

"Well, sometimes the police aren't exactly a help, even to us." Robin admitted.

"Hey, come on, it's open. Well… now anyway." Aya grinned at Bolt.

"Fingerprints?" Bolt asked hopefully.

"Checked but they all scanned back to the people who work here." Aya replied as she heaved the heavy vault door open.

"Here, let me help." Raven said reaching out and pulling the door open with her powers, Aya's eyes widened and she jumped back from the blackness of Raven's powers.

"There. Open." Raven said with a small smile.

"I had it." Aya said flatly and walked in, Raven lowered her hand and frowned.

"You're welcome." She muttered following after with the others.

"Where is the device meant to be?" Starfire asked looking at the rows and rows of stored and carefully labelled devices as they walked further into the storage room.

"Well, this row according to the reference and… it's… not here." Bolt said trailing off as they came to a suspicious gap in the shelves with disturbed dust.

"So we know whoever did this stole the device." Lucky noted thoughtfully.

"Well, there wasn't any footprints into here so it's probably the same floating person that left no trail at the site of the portal. Smell anything Aya?" Ice asked.

"Just all of you, and dust." Aya said tonelessly.

"Hm. Well that's a dead end then, what now?" Bolt mused out loud.

"Whatever you want, I'm out. I've got damage control to do as well as a million other things." Aya said turning into a wolf and padding out between the legs of the Titans and heading back towards the door at a decent pace.

"Aya…" Bolt called out after her but got no response.

"God, she's been acting weird all evening." He grumbled rubbing the back of his head frustratedly.

"Yeah, even for her. I wonder what's up." Lucky agreed.


End file.
